ST. THOMAS AQUINAS AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM

E purpose ( I ) to set down a few passages from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas

dealing with Biblical Criticism ; and (2) to give a short commentary on them.

I

" In discussing matters of this kind, two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad litt. i). The first is to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty (certa ratione) to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and an obstacle be placed to their believing (18 Qu. 68, Art. I , Eng. Tr.).

" As, however, this theory (i.e. an infinite body of waters be ond the heavens) can be shown to be false by s o l d reasons (per veras rationes), it cannot be held to be the sense of Sacred Sckipture. It should rather be considered that Moses was speak- ing to ignorant people (rudi populo) and that out of condescension to their weakness he put before them only such things as are apparent to sense " (ibid.,

St. Thomas here broaches the relationship between Revelation and Reason. If anything can be shown by reason to be false, it cannot be the sense of Sacred Scripture. Not only does St. Thomas enunciate the general principle, but he reinforces it by showing what harm may be done to unbelievers by denying the principle. Moreover, he applies the general principle

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Art. 3).

Blackf riars to concrete cases of exegesis. St. Thomas’s Principle of Science.

This may be called

I1

“ When it is said in Exodus xv. 18 : ‘ The Lord shall reign for ever and ever ’ (in aternum et ultra) we must consider that u?ternum there means age, as another translation has it ” (Ia Qu. X, Art. 2 , ad 2m).

“According to one version of the Scripture, the completion of the works is attributed to the seventh day; though, according to another version, it is assigned to the sixth. Either version, however, may stand ” ( I” Qu 73, Art. I , ad ~m).

St. Thomas here pays respect to the Science of Textual Criticism. So concerned is he to save at once the truth of Scripture and-of Science, i.e. of Revela- tion and of Reason, that he is willing to admit faulty,’ thou h semi-official translations. He is even anxious

according as it may be settled by the Textual critics. No Biblical scholar would feel himself fettered by the principles of this prince of theologians.

A still more striking example of this breadth of principle is found in the next extract.

2

to a f mit that it may be the sixth or the seventh day,

I11

“ There are some who contend that this dis- crepancy is due to the eiror of the Greek transcriber, since the characters employed by them to represent 3 and 6 are somewhat alike’’ (3” Qu. 46, Art. 9, ad P). The question here mooted is the hour at which the

Evangelists place our Blessed Lord’s death. St. Mark seemed to place it about the third hour; St. John, about the sixth. After giving an elaborate explanation

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St. Thomas Aquinas and Biblical Criticism from St. Augustine's De Consensu Evang., St. Thomas adds the simple explanation of a false text due to a copyist's blunder ! One almost forgets that this was written, not in the twentieth century but in the thirteenth. In its quiet relevance it goes far to re- assure those who are now engaged in patiently piecing together a perfect text. *

IV

" An angel causing an imaginative vision some- times enlightens the intellect at the same time, so that it knows what these images signify ; and then there is no deception. But sometimes by the angelic operation the similitudes of things only appear in the imagination ; yet neither then is deception caused by the angel, but by the defect in the intellect of him to whom such things appear.

" Thus neither was Christ a cause of deception when He spoke many things to the people in parables, which He did not explain to them " (Ira, 11" Qu. CXI, Art. 3, ad 4"). Only a short reference can be made to this most

important principle which is of supreme value in dealing with God's supernatural dealings with the cognitive faculties of saints and seers. To solve one of the most subtle difficulties against Inspiration by an appeal to the economy of parables may well be looked upon as a triumph of -Hermeneutics.

V " We must bear in mind that although the

resurrection of these (holy men who died before Jesus Christ) is mentioned before His resurrection, nevertheless, as is clear from the text, this is to be understood as said by anticipation, as frequently OCCUYS in the historical books " (Supp. Qu. 77, Art. I , ad 3 m ) .

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Blackfriars St. Thomas here deals with the question of chron-

ology in his own broad-minded way. Not only are events sometimes narrated out of their strict chrono- logical order, but this is of frequent occurrence in the Sacred Books. St. Thomas would therefore have no theological difficulties against the theory of Canon Van Hoonacker, to wit, that the mission of Nehemias preceded the mission of Esdras, although according to the order of the books in the Jewish Canon it would seem not to have preceded but followed it.

But St. Thomas has himself made use of this principle in the following cases.

VI

(a) " As Augustine says (De Consensu Evang., ii), ' It is not certain which happened first : whether the kingdoms of the earth were first shown to Him and afterwards He was set on the pinnach of the Temple ; or t h latter jirst and the former afterwards. How- ever, it matters not, provided it be made clear that all these things did take place.' I t may be that the Evangelists set these things in different orders, because sometimes cupidity arises from vainglory ; sometimes the reverse happens " (3" Qu. 41, Art. 4, ad p).

(b) " And therefore others said that the Evan- gelists did not always follow the precise order in their narrative as that in which things actually happened, as is seen from Augustine (De Consmu Evang., ii). Hence it can be understood that the order of what took place can be expressed thus: ' Taking the bread He blessed i t , saying, This is My body, and then He broke i t , and gave it to His dis- ciples ' " (3" Qu. 78, Art. I , ad ~m).

Here the principle that the historiographers did not always follow the chronological order is used to

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St. Thomas Aquinns and Biblical Criticism meet the chronological difficulties (a) of our Blessed Lord’s Temptation, and (b) of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament.

St. Matthew’s account of the Temptation (iv. I , etc.) follows an order different from the account in St. Luke’s gospel (iv. I, etc.). It is agreed that if St. Matthew’s order of the three temptations is right, then St. Luke’s is wrong ; and if St. Luke’s is right, St. Matthew’s is wrong. Both cannot be right. St. Thomas frankly admits this, but argues, on the authority of St. Augustine, his master, that these Evangelists, although historians, were not merely historians writing on a chronological plane, but were also hagiographers writing on a plane where the chronological order could be displaced for the pur ose of showing how “ sometimes cupidity arises $0, vainglory, and sometimes the reverse.”

The solemn words of institution of the Blessed Sacrament were no less divergent than the two accounts of the Temptation. Indeed, instead of two divergent accounts there were four, viz. Matt. xxvi, Mark xiv, Luke xxii, I Cor. xi. The writer of the Adoro Te yielded to no one in his profound worship of Him Whom he called “ Latens Deitas.” Yet he had no hesitation in again following the guidance of his master, St. Augustine, and allowing the Scripture exegete to solve these chronological dficulties on the principle that the inspired writers did not profess to follow the chronological order, even in such sacred matters as the institution of the Sacrament of Sacra- mats. How this is compatible.with the do the Sacred’ Scripture contains no untruth wil be best seen in the following principle of St. Thomas.

‘i”” that .

VII

“ It is unlawful to hold that any false assertion (aliquod falsum asseri) is contained either in the

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Blackf riars Gospel or in an canonical Scripture, or that the

would be deprived of its certitude-which is based on the authority of Holy Writ. That the words of certain people are variously reported in the Gospel and other sacred writings does not constitute a lie. Hence Augustine says (De Consensu Evang., ii), ‘ He that h the wit to understand that in order to k m the truth it is necessary to get at the sense, will con- clude that he must not be the least troubled, no matter by what words that sense is expressed.’#Hence it is evident, as he adds, that we must not judge that some- one is lying, if several persons fail to &sm‘be in the same way and in the same words a thing t h y remember to have seen or heard” ( I I ~ , I I ~ Qu. 110, Art. 3,ad ~m).

This display of exegetical wisdom comes in the treatise on Lying. The question to which it is an answer is so plain and pointed as to remind us of the saying of an unbeliever that “ from the pages of the Summa (i.e. from the objections of St. Thomas) he could compile a Grammar of Unbelief.” St. Thomas objects to himself: “ It is evident that the Evangelists did not sin in writing the Gospel. Yet they seem to have told something false, since their accounts of the words of Christ and of others often differ from one another. Wherefore, seemingly, one of them must have given an untrue account.”

T o this plain difficulty, which has wrung the hearts of those who have not the true view of Scripture and the Church, St. Thomas gives a reply full of scholar- ship and caution. He contents himself with the traditional doctrine that the Sacred Writers did not tell a lie ; because they did not put forward as true anything untrue (non . . . aliquod falsum asseri). He then shelters himself behind the authority of St. Augustine by calling attention to two main factors :-

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writers thereof K ave told untruths, because faith

St. Thomas Aquinas and Biblical Criticism I. Scripture exegetes should pay attention, not so

much to words as to meaning, i.e. not so much as to what the words of the writer mean, as to what the writer means by the words. It is clear that if a writer meant to write a parable and we take it to be history- if he writes down a tradition and we take it to be his personal opinion-if he writes what he looks on as substantially accurate and we take it to be meticu- lously exact-if he records what his fellow-countrymen hold as revealed and we take it to be really revealed- then the error, if any, arises not from his words or his meaning but from the meaning we place on his words.

2. " Different eye-witnesses give different witness." This is good sense, as well as good exegesis. St. Thomas has no hesitation in borrowing this good sense from St. Augustine, who veryiaccurately dis- tinguishes in the different versionsiof inspired writers two elements : (a) a difference of order (not in the same way, non eodem modo), and (b) a difference of phrase (not in the same words, non eisdem verbis).

VIII

" Augustine says (Civ. Dei, xi.) that the an els

creation were not o P things, but are designated by the name of heavens, and of light. And they were either passed over or designated by the names of corporeal things because Moses was addressing an uncultured people (rudi populo) as yet incapable of under- standing an incorporeal nature ; and if it had been divulged that there were creatures existing beyond corporeal nature, it would have proved to them an

" Other writers think that the production of spiritual creatures was purposely omitted by Moses. . . . Chrysostom (Horn. 2, in Gen.) gives as a reason

assed over in that account of the i rst

, occasion of idolatry " (18 Qu. 61, Art. I, ad I).

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that Moses was addressing an ignorant people (rudi populo) to whom material things alone appealed, and whom he was endeavouring to withdraw from the service of idols ” (Ia Qu. 67, Art. 4, ad I).

Few principles of Biblical interpretation are more important than this, which St. Thomas borrowed from St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine. No doubt St. Thomas had found the principle expressed by the Eternal Wisdom Himself in all its depth. “ I told you not these things from the beginning because I was with you. . . . I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now’’ (John xvi. 5 , 12). This enunciated the great principle of an (( economy ” in tempering or withholding truth out of mercy to the human mind. St. Paul had used the same principle of “ economy ” even to the intellectual Greeks of Corinth. “ And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal ; as unto little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat ; for you were not able as yet ” ( I Cor. iii. 12). Towards the year 388 St. John Chrysostom used this principle to unlock the mysteries of the Mosaic Hexaemeron in the series of brilliant homilies from which St. Thomas took it, some nine centuries later. In a few years the same application which St. John Chrysostom had made at Antioch, was being made by St. Augustine at Hippo. We leave to students of patrology the task of finding out whether the relationship between these two applications is more than chronological. From the age of Augustine the principle would seem almost to have slept until it awoke to life under the genius of St. Thomas.

It is wonderful in how many ways St. Thomas uses it to light up the dark sayings of the Mosaic Hexzemeron.

Thus in the passage borrowed from St. John Chrysostom it is used to account for the supposed

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St. Thomas Aquinas and Biblical Critidsm silence of Moses on the creation and existence of angels !

In the passage borrowed from St. Augustine it is used to account for Moses using the word “ light ” to mean ‘‘ angels ” in the sentence : “ And God said, Be light made ” (Gen. i. 3). Whatever we may think of this method of interpretation, we cannot quarrel with it for narrowing the freedom of the exegete.

Again, he uses this principle of St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine to show that by the word “ Earth ” Moses meant Primary Matter (Materia Prima) from which all corporeal things are made (Qu. 66, Art. I, ad P).

In Qu. 91, Art. I, ad ~m he points out that in the Hexmeron there is no mention of fire and air. He accounts for this omission by the fact that the Scripture was given to “ an uncultured people ” (rudi populo).

In Qu. 68, Art. 3, he expresses the principle with great precision in these words : “ It should rather be considered that Moses was speaking to an ignorant people (rudi populo) and that out of condescension to their weakness (imbecillitati condescendens) he put before them (proposuit) only such things as are apparent to sense.”

An analysis of this full statement of principle would be of great value to Scripture interpretation ; but it would carry us be ond the limits of our space. We may merely note Bow (I) St. Thomas speaks ex- plicitly of a divine “ condescensio.” This is a remini- scence of the KUTU/~UU(Q, so well known to students of thc-Arian and Nestorian heresies of the fourth to sixth ceatariea. (2) He uses the very guarded and formal. word “ he put before them ” (pro osuit). Not every

put before us as Holy Writ. We can hardly overstate the significance of this

principle for Biblical criticism. To an early age which

meaning latent in the words of t K e Holy Writers is

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Blackf riars had not the same knowledge or science of the forces of nature as we have, the writer of the inspired Scrip- ture used an " economy " which allowed him ( I ) to leave out from a summary not a few of its most im- portant elements (e.g. fire and air from the forces of nature), and (2) to use words in a sense other than that commonly accepted (e.g. l2ht to mean angel).

But great as is the breadth of this canon of inter- retation it is perhaps still broader in the following Lm.

IX

" According to another theory, touched upon by Augustine, the heaven made on the first day was the starry heaven, and the firmament made on the second day was that region of the air which is also called heaven but epivocaZZy (equivoce). And to show that the word is here used in an equiwocal sense (ad equivocationem designandam) it is 'ex- pressly said that God called the firmament heaven. For the same reason, in a preceding verse, it is said that God called the light day, since the word day is also used to denote a space of twenty-four hours. Other instances of a similar use occur as pointed by Rabbi Moses " (Ia Qu. 88, Art. I , ad r m ) . G," It may also be said with Rabbi Moses that the expression He culled denotes throughout an equi- vocal use of the name imposed (significatur equi- vocatio nominis) " (Qu. 91, Art. I , ad 5").

We merely call attention to this almost astounding principle which reveals some of the characteristics of a mind open to truth, no matter from what point truth approached. The respect paid to the authority of Rabbi Moses Maimonides is all the more remarkable because it was during the lifetime of St. Thomas that the Dominican (?) author of De Erroribus Philoso-

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St. Thomas Aquinas and Biblical Criticism phmum was compiling a list of errors from the works of Moses Maimonides." It is significant that amongst the errors of Rabbi Moses enumerated in De Erroribus Philosophorum we read : " Moreover he erred about the Divine attributes, believing that wisdom and goodness are in us and in God only equivocally."

X

"According to Augustine (QQ. in Gen. 145), when Joseph said there was no one like him in the science of divining he spoke in joke and not seriously, referring perhaps to the common opinion about him ; in this sense also spoke his steward " (IIa, 11" Qu. 95, Art. 7, ad I").

" It may also be said that it was not the soul of Samuel but a demon speaking in his name, and that the wise man (i.e. the inspired writer of the book of Ecclesiasticus) calls him Samuel and his foretelling a prophecy, according to t h opinion of Saul and the

standers, who were of this opinion " (IIa, 11" u. 174, Art. 5 , ad 4). " Augustine says (Gen. ad litt. xii.) it is stated in

Exodus that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, and shortly afterwards we read show me Thy glory. ' Therefore he perceived what he saw and he desired what he saw not.' Hence he did not see the very Essence of God. . . . Accordingly, when Scripture states that He spoke to him f m e to face, this is to be understood as expressing the opinion of the people who thought that Moses was s eaking with God

This most valuable principle of Scripture interpre- tation is worthy of more insistence than we can give within the limits of an article. But a few remarks may be useful.

8

.

- s#t& to mouth " (16,IP Qu. 9 t! , Art. 3, ad 2m). - ,

b Mandonnet,O.P., Sigev de Bvabant I F Part, pp. 21, 22. K 145

Blackfriars Already St. Thomas has insisted that the inspired

writers often shaped their words to the knowledge or to the ignorance of their readers. T o an unlettered people who were prone to idolatry the existence of higher intellectual beings had either to be withheld or disguised under the words “ heaven ” or “ light.” In a parallel way the inspired writers sometimes shaped their words, not according to their own views nor the objective fact, but according to the opinion of the people (secundum opinionem populi). Now it some- times happens that the opinion of the people is wrong.

As a principle of Biblical interpretation this opinion of St. Thomas is all the more remarkable because as St. Thomas would suggest, there is not necessarily anything in the context definitely leading us to this interpretation. It is written : “ And he (Joseph) said to, them . . . Know you not that there is no one like to me in the art of divining ? ” (Gen. xliv. 15). It does not add “ This he said in jest.”

Again, Ecclesiasticus writes (xlvi. 23) : “ After this Samuel slept ; and shewed him the end of his life, and he lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy.” He does not add “ I t was not really the soul of Samuel, nor was it really a divine prophecy. But the onlookers thought it was Samuel, and that it was a divine prophecy.”

Lastly, the inspired writer of Exodus wrote (xxxiii. 11) : “ And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face.” But he did not add, and there is nothing in the context

“ This is what the people thought; and

If it is urged that this method’ of interpretation used by St. Augustine and St. Thomas seems to commit the Sacred Writer to an untruth, we might provision- ally reply that the authority of these two great thinkers is enough to reassure us. No men had a better know-

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thou5 to s‘igest t wrongly.”

St. Thomas Aquinas and Biblical Criticism ledge of the Sacred Scripture or a deeper reverence for its two gifts of Revelation and Inspiration.

But their principles of interpretation, which on examination will be found to make an organic whole, will also be found to have provided an answer to those timid minds who see untruth in the words of the in- spired writers. Already we have seen that we are asked to accept as true and revealed only what is put forward by the inspired writer as true and revealed- as true yet not revealed only what is true yet not revealed. The writer of these passages which express the opinion of the people did not mean to express the objective fact but the opinion of the people.

Sometimes this statement of a fact in the opinion of a group of men is explicitly made as " The fool said in his heart, ' There is no God ' " (Psalm). At other times it is not expressed but implied, as in the three passages quoted from St. Thomas.

If it be further urged that this leaves the ordinary reader in doubt as to the meaning of much of the inspired writings, we reply that this doubt is calculated to deepen not our ignorance but our desire of authority. Indeed, the vexed question of what is meant b certain

their human side to Eastern modes of life and litera- ture, may well be left to that patient band of Biblical exegetes who are working under the authority of the Bride of Christ.

If then one of these exegetes should ask whether or not he is free to apply these principles say to the minute, civic, social, domestic, ethical and liturgical legislation of the Thorah, or again, to the historical account of the twelve tribes, or to the rise of Jerusalem ae a national and religious capital, we are at a loss to know how any fettering of his exegetical freedom could be reconciled with the theological principles of St. Thomas. VINCENT MCNABB, O.P.

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passages, and indeed by whole books evident r y owing